Top 10 Weirdest MLB Injuries

Every fan remembers the heroic feat of a star player dogging through an injury and still beating the odds to win a championship. Former Los Angeles Dodgers OF Kirk Gibson walked off in Game 1 of the 1988 World Series while injured; Edinson Vólquez pitched six quality innings in Game 1 of the 2015 World Series after his father died. These are tear-jerking moments that connect to us emotionally and will stay with us forever.

However, as beautiful as baseball is, it’s choc-full of weird blunders that defy all logic and reason. Like SP Trevor Bauer pitching in the 2016 playoffs with his hand dripping blood. How did he cut that hand? By trying to fix a flyable drone at his house. Sometimes, even the most elite athletes in baseball injure themselves in the most implausible ways. Here are some of the weirdest injures that made MLB players miss significant time.

10. Will Smith’s Knee-slapper

Back in 2016 with the Milwaukee Brewers, LHP Will Smith tore the lateral collateral ligament in his knee when he took off his shoes to shower after a spring training game. As a result, Smith missed the first two months of the season, returning at the beginning of June 2016. 

“I pulled hard [on the shoe], and it stayed on,” Smith told the Associated Press. “My knee just went up and popped. Everyone tells you there is nothing you can do about it, but you still feel like you are letting people down.”

He had aspirations of being the closer that year but had an average season as a set-up man before being traded to the San Francisco Giants.

9. Salvador Pérez Falls And Can’t Get Up

Right before the 2018 season started, Perez went down for four to six weeks after hearing a “pop” in his knee as he fell. Unfortunately, he ended up tearing his MCL, but it wasn’t severe enough to keep him out for more than a month. Perez was a five-time All-Star heading into the season and arguably had a career year in 2017. Luckily, he still made the 2018 All-Star team and mirrored his home run and RBI totals from the previous year. 

8. Clint Barmes Has An Unlucky Break

In 2005, then-Colorado Rockies rookie SS Clint Barmes claimed that he was riding an ATV after a victory when he hurt his collarbone, which required surgery. He later had to clarify to ESPN that the injury stemmed from teammate and former 1B Todd Helton gifting him some deer meat. Barmes had a titanium plate and nine screws placed in his shoulder.

“I just didn’t think it was right to bring Todd Helton into something like this,” Barmes told The Denver Post. 

Barmes missed three months of the season and finished eighth in Rookie of The Year voting.

7. Chris Davis Got Up On The Wrong Side Of The Bed

After being acquired by the Baltimore Orioles during the 2011 season, 1B Chris Davis was given more playing time down the stretch for an eventual playoff run. However, after playing a series in Kansas City, Davis woke up with a sore shoulder that lingered into his next few games. Team doctors checked him out, and they determined that Davis had wear and tear on his labrum and rotator cuff. Davis blamed this on the way he slept rather than his extended playing time.

6. Madison Bumgarner Versus An ATV

The former 2014 World Series MVP was riding a rented bike with some family members in 2017 when he randomly spun out and crashed. He bruised a few ribs and sprained the acromioclavicular joint in his pitching shoulder. MadBum took responsibility, calling the situation “terrible,” and said he apologized to his Giants teammates. He missed almost three months of action and didn’t get his first win of the season until the end of July 2017. 

Since his spontaneous injury, Bumgarner arguably has never been the same pitcher. He hasn’t finished a season with an ERA below 3.20 after posting four consecutive campaigns with a sub-3.00 ERA. Additionally, Bumgarner only cracked the 200 innings plateau once since 2017.

5. Kerry Wood Made A Splash

With RHP Kerry Wood already having a storied injury history by 2007, the Chicago Cubs accepted his option and converted him into a reliever. However, Wood was still recovering from injuries that he sustained in 2006, and a fall in his hot tub that injured his chest and stomach didn’t help his rehabilitation. As a result, Wood only appeared in 22 games for the Cubs in ‘07, all in the second half.

4.  Chris Coghlan’s Celebration Backfired

OF/IF Chris Coghlan was the 2009 NL Rookie of the Year, but his career immediately flamed out. In his second season, he tried to celebrate a walk-off homer by IF Wes Helms by applying a shaving cream pie to Helms’ face. Excited, Coghlan jumped over Helms and tore his meniscus in his left knee. He underwent surgery and could never replicate the numbers he put up in his first full season. 

3. Kendrys Morales Couldn’t Walk This One Off

Morales was 51 games into his 2010 season when he hit a walk-off grand slam against the Seattle Mariners. However, as he approached home plate, he was too aggressive in his jump and fractured his ankle. As a result, he needed surgery that ended his 2010 season and had numerous setbacks in his recovery, causing him to miss the entire 2011 season. 

2. Jason Isringhausen’s Double Whammy

RHP Jason “Izzy” Isringhausen was just not destined to have a good time with the New York Mets. After a solid rookie season as a starting pitcher in 1995, Izzy struggled in 1996 and underwent arthroscopic surgery on his elbow and shoulder that wiped out his 1997 and 1998 seasons. 

During the 1999 season, after a rough outing during a rehab stint, he slammed his hand on a plastic garbage can in the dugout and fractured his wrist, effectively costing him two more months of his career. Well into his recovery, Isringhausen experienced chest pains and had difficulty breathing. In addition, he had a spot on his lung that turned out to be tuberculosis and underwent a third surgery to remove it. He was flipped that season to the Oakland A’s and immediately became the lockdown closer we knew him as. 

1. Glenallen Hill’s Worst Nightmare

OF Glenallen Hill had a decent 13-year career as a utility player. However, he appeared in 100-plus games in only five separate seasons and wasn’t known for his hitting or fielding expertise. He was a bit of an oaf in both aspects. 

In 1990, while playing for the Cubs, Hill had a nightmare about spiders. In a frantic panic, Hill ran into another room and crashed through a glass table. The arachnophobic denied the spiders’ impact on his freak out, claiming that his dream was diet and stress-related. The worst part? His teammates mockingly called him Spider-Man, and the nickname followed Hill throughout his career. Hill spent 15 days on the injured list with cuts and bruises.

Cover photo courtesy of Jeff Roberson/AP Photo